Depth: Foundation
Contributions to threads
Justice as fairness asks which basic institutions free and equal persons would accept under fair choice conditions.
1958–1971 CE · certain
The veil of ignorance blocks bargaining advantages; Rawls argues that parties would protect equal basic liberties and permit inequalities only under fair opportunity and when they improve the position of the least advantaged.
Works or evidence:A Theory of Justice §§ 11–17 and 24–30.
Sources: 3; 1Intellectual setting
Rawls wrote after the Second World War amid civil-rights conflict, the welfare state, Vietnam, and analytic moral philosophy's renewed engagement with substantive normative argument.
Key ideas
Original position and veil of ignorance
Parties deprived of knowledge of their class, talents, religion, and conception of the good select principles without tailoring them to their own social advantage.
Two principles of justice
Equal basic liberties have priority; social and economic inequalities must attach to offices open under fair equality of opportunity and benefit the least advantaged.
Public reason
On constitutional essentials, citizens should justify coercive political power through reasons that other free and equal citizens can reasonably accept despite deep disagreement.
Legacy
Justice as fairness reset Anglophone political philosophy's agenda; egalitarians, libertarians, communitarians, feminists, and critical race theorists developed major positions by extending or contesting its assumptions.